Diamonds On My Pillow

Niharika’s eyes had turned red with anger and humiliation. With trembling lips, she spoke out in one breath—

“I cannot marry a guy like you, Rohan. The fact that I even got into this relationship with you—that’s your good luck. Now I understand that I loved the wrong person. What I saw today… in the end, you with that girl… disgusting! If I hadn’t come today, I would never have known about all this of yours!”

There was such disgust and disappointment in her voice that even the surrounding air seemed to grow heavy.

Rohan took a step forward, clear fear and helplessness in his eyes.

“Niharika, please… what you saw isn’t the whole truth. You’re misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding?” Niharika let out a sharp, pain-filled laugh. “I saw it with my own eyes, Rohan. With my own eyes! And you’re saying I’m misunderstanding?”

“What you saw was just a moment, not the whole incident,” Rohan said desperately. “That—it was a wrong situation. If you let me, I can explain everything.”

“Explain?” Niharika’s eyes flared up. “What will you explain? That you weren’t holding that girl’s hand? Or that you didn’t hug her?”

Rohan fell silent. For a moment, he couldn’t find any words.

“I… I was comforting her,” he finally said.

“Comforting?” There was sarcasm in Niharika’s voice. “Do you have to get that close to comfort someone? Do you have to be that intimate?”

“She had broken down, Niharika,” Rohan said quickly. “She had a big problem, and no one was there for her. I was just—”

“Stop!” Niharika raised her hand to stop him. “Not another word. Do you know what the biggest problem is?”

Rohan stayed silent and looked at her.

“You didn’t tell me anything beforehand,” Niharika said slowly. “If something like this really happened, you could have told me. But you hid it. And today I saw it myself.”

Rohan stepped a little closer and said softly,

“I thought it was a small matter, I didn’t want to worry you. I—”

“No, Rohan,” Niharika shook her head. “You thought I wouldn’t find out. That’s the truth.”

For a while, both of them remained silent. Only the distant sound of cars and the occasional soft breeze filled the air.

This time Rohan spoke in a slightly firm voice,

“You’ve known me for so long, Niharika. Am I that kind of person? Can I betray you?”

Tears welled up in Niharika’s eyes, but she quickly wiped them away.

“I thought you weren’t like that,” she said calmly. “But what I saw today has broken that belief.”

“Was that belief so weak?” Pain showed in Rohan’s voice. “Everything ended just by seeing one scene?”

“Not one scene,” Niharika said slowly. “A feeling. The look I saw in your eyes today… that wasn’t for me.”

Rohan was stunned.

“You saw it wrong, Niharika. There’s only you in my eyes. There always has been.”

“These dialogues sound good in movies,” Niharika said coldly. “Not in real life.”

“I’m not lying!” Rohan almost shouted. “I love you, that’s the truth!”

“Love?” Niharika stepped a little closer. “Do you know what love means? Trust. And you’ve broken that.”

Rohan reached out to hold her hand, but Niharika pulled it away sharply.

“Don’t touch me,” she whispered, but even that whisper carried intense disgust.

Rohan’s hand remained hanging in mid-air. Slowly, he lowered it.

“Give me one chance,” he pleaded. “I’ll fix everything. I’ll prove—”

“Prove?” Niharika closed her eyes for a moment. “Love never has to be proven, Rohan. It has to be felt. And I… I don’t feel anything anymore.”

Those words pierced Rohan’s heart like a knife.

“You can’t leave like this,” he said in a trembling voice. “All our moments… all those memories… do they have no value?”

Niharika slowly opened her eyes.

“They do,” she said. “They have great value. That’s why it hurts so much.”

“Then why are you leaving?” Rohan asked helplessly.

“Because I can’t keep humiliating myself anymore,” Niharika stood straight. “I cannot stay with someone I cannot trust.”

“I will earn your trust back,” Rohan made one last attempt. “Just give me some time.”

Niharika shook her head.

“Some things, once broken, can never be the same again, Rohan. No matter how much you try to fix them, the cracks remain.”

Then she lifted her bag onto her shoulder.

Rohan’s chest suddenly felt empty.

“Is this the end?” he asked softly.

Niharika looked at him for a moment. In her gaze was the last shadow of love, and deep pain.

“Yes,” she said. “This is the end.”

Rohan couldn’t say anything more. His throat dried up, his vision blurred.

Niharika turned around. She took a few steps forward… then paused for a moment.

Rohan’s heart skipped a beat—maybe she would look back, maybe she would say something.

But no.

Niharika didn’t look back.

She slowly walked away, she had come out of the mansion, and with every step, she moved farther away from Rohan’s life.

Rohan stood still. Everything around him seemed to have stopped.

Only one thought kept circling in his mind

Had he really lost everything?

And far away, Niharika disappeared into the crowd, writing the final chapter of a relationship.

From a distance, someone was watching all of this.

(Who is that person? What is their identity? Do they know Niharika?)